


Unspoken Truths

by Verity_Kindle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb for World’s Tryingest Dad, Found Family, Gen, Missing Scene, Nott for Goblin of the Year, spoilers through C2Ep5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 14:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verity_Kindle/pseuds/Verity_Kindle
Summary: Nott is a goblin, and goblins aren’t known for their ability to share nicely.To be blunt, I felt like we missed a scene at the end of Episode 5, and this is my way of trying to fill it in.





	Unspoken Truths

Caleb has told Nott many times that she should feel free to ask questions, and usually, it’s something she’s really good at. She’s (nosy, unwanted little beast) inquisitive, Caleb says, and he always smiles at her when he says it. She asks questions and speaks for herself, and tells him when she thinks he’s wrong. It gets easier with time. 

There are a few things she will not ask, because she doesn’t know whether she or Caleb are more likely to break at the answers. She doesn’t ask about his life before they met, or whether he has any family. She doesn’t ask how he sees her, sees their relationship to one another. 

Nott doesn’t ask whether Caleb ever wanted to be a parent. 

*****

She’s had a Caleb all to herself for seven or eight months, and if there’s one thing goblins aren’t good at (there’s lots of things goblins aren’t good at), it’s sharing. And yes, she was the one who argued for staying with these people, and no, she doesn’t regret it. They’re really good company, especially Jester, and she does feel like Caleb is better protected with this many people around. 

The thing is. 

The thing is, Nott is the one who has been looking after Caleb. It’s only fair, after all, given everything he’s done for her. He’s saved her life many times, and being able to return the favor even a bit makes her feel warm and needed. It’s not proper, she knows; then again, what do goblins know of proper behavior? She would save Caleb every day, if she could. 

If she saved him, after all, maybe he would need her. Maybe he would keep her around. 

Maybe he would love her. 

******

It’s a strange feeling that hits Nott all at once when Caleb is talking to Toya. He’s being so nice to her - quiet, kind voice, considerate questions. Caleb is good with children, and they need all the information they can get. 

But then he stoops down to her level and smiles, and calls her “child,” and Nott feels a knot form in her guts. She steps back from the conversation quietly, schooling her features. It’s okay. Caleb is allowed to talk to other people with that tone of voice, and to smile at other girls. It doesn’t mean anything. 

People don’t talk to goblins that way. Goblins don’t talk to goblins that way. Only Caleb. 

She’s happy when they leave Toya behind, and she’s not good enough with words to truly express what it was she was feeling. Jealous, maybe - but, then, who could be surprised? Everyone knows goblins are greedy, after all. 

*****

Caleb talks her out of stealing a health potion, and Nott is more than a little bewildered, because Caleb helps her steal things, doesn’t want her to go alone when she gets the itch. Caleb knows why she needs it. She can’t watch him die again. 

He tells her it’s too big a risk (and that, she will happily ignore. Caleb is so clever, but he is stupid about himself. He doesn’t know the value of things.) and he tells her that maybe these lunatics can be his healing potion. 

Nott’s not stupid. She has seen how Caleb is already drawn to Fjord, and it makes sense, it does. Fjord is calm and steady and reasonable. He doesn’t sneak off at night to steal from respectable folk and bring trouble down on their heads. He and Caleb can talk, heads together and voices low, and nobody comes to attack Caleb for who he’s consorting with. Of course he can be relied on. 

She agrees (of course she does) and takes a long drink when Caleb isn’t looking. The group may be his choice of backup, but Nott is going to have his back anyway, whether he likes it or not. 

*****

The trouble with Caleb, as Nott can tell you, is that he’s so busy considering the ways in which he considers himself lacking that he misses his actual flaws. He’ll sit up to keep watch by himself in the middle of the night, paying no attention to the fact that his eyes are useless and that he could easily have been killed by any of dozens of creatures Nott could name offhand. 

That’s something she will not allow, and so Nott does what she does best - running, sneaking, spying, keeping Caleb safe. She’s a good pair of eyes, she knows. 

She needs to be more than that. 

Doing magic all alone for the first time is a mixture of terror and elation that Nott has only previously experienced while soothing her itch, and she pauses for a moment, examining the possibilities. Only for a moment, though, because her message is sent, and Caleb’s voice comes back through, hesitant and confused, and she has managed to surprise him. That’s good, she think as she hurries back. It’s good to keep coming up with new and clever things to offer. 

Nott’s breath rushes out of her in a whoosh as Caleb scoops her up when she gets back, holding her high and -singing?- at her. Humans are very strange, she thinks, and tries her best not to giggle as he swings her through the air. 

“Look at you! You did a spell, you spoke to me!” Caleb is more pleased than she’s ever seen him before without a new book in hand, and he’s looking at Nott the way he usually looks at a promising new bookstore. She can’t help but grin back at him, and is amused by the fact that she’s looking down at him, for once. 

She tells him that she did what she remembered - spell components and whispers drawn from hours of watching Caleb work and study and practice magic; her own little tribute to him.

“I’m so proud of you,” Caleb says, and Nott’s heart feels like it might burst open. Nobody has ever been proud of her before. She holds onto that feeling even as the moment fades, and knows herself well enough to guess that she’ll have a new itch to satisfy in the future. Magic is as much of a high as stealing, and Caleb’s approval adds a new dimension of wonder. 

*****

The thing is. 

The thing is, people don’t like goblins. And there’s good reason for that. Even Nott doesn’t like goblins. 

And she knows, she knows Caleb feels indebted to her for her help in the past. She knows he understands some of her own fears and worries, and she is happier than she can express when he stands up for her every time he sees the glances people throw her way. He makes her feel safer. It’s because of Caleb that she suddenly has a whole group of friends - friends, for a goblin! And he keeps teaching her magic, and asks her to watch over him when he’s out looking through Frumpkin’s eyes, and Nott knows that Caleb trusts her. 

She may be afraid of big people who could kill her, and dark places, and water, and prison (definitely prison), but she can be brave when she forgets about all of that and just charges in. 

They all charge into Alfield as the city is burning and people are screaming, and Nott has to ignore all of that, she has to. She runs in and finds herself in the middle of fire, with nothing to worry about or second guess - just acting. She shoots and climbs and jumps and runs, all in a blur, and doesn’t stop to think. 

And that’s what gets her killed. 

Not killed, Jester insists later. Just unconscious, almost dead, and with the lingering certainty that this is it as her eyes go dark. Back home, in her clan, they left the dying to die and moved on. She fades from consciousness with a sigh, and knows she’s had a much better life than she deserves. Even if it’s been short. She does wish Caleb had been there, though. She wishes she wasn’t dying alone. 

And then she wakes up again in Jester’s lap, and every breath feels like fire, but she’s breathing and blinking and coughing like a drowning man. She manages to stand up and walk, somehow, but the world feels hazy and far away. They’ve lost the gnolls and the cart, and Jester is humming while butchering corpses, and the whole world is fire. She’s aware enough to check that Caleb is still standing, and then she follows around in the group’s wake, helping where she can with the fires and cleanup, and Nott wonders vaguely whether everyone always feels this way when they’re meant to be dead. 

Eventually, everything stops. They pile into one large room, everyone equally bloody and sweaty and stinky, and everyone’s asleep as soon as they lie down, it seems. Everyone but Nott. 

She lies still, curled up small at the foot of the bed she’s sharing with Caleb, and stares out the window at the sky. It’s hard to make out moons or stars through the haze of smoke. She tries to breathe shallowly to avoid angering her tired lungs. 

They hadn’t left her to die. Even though she was what she was, Jester hadn’t hesitated to save her, and Fjord had called to her when she was in danger with such worry in his voice that it had startled her badly. She draws in a deep breath at the memory, and finds her body wracked by a coughing fit as her lungs protest the exercise. Nott buries her face in the thick quilt to stifle the sound. A moment later, a huge, warm hand is rubbing circles on her back, and Nott gradually becomes able to breathe again, wiping her eyes with the back of a filthy hand. 

“Are you all right?” Caleb asks urgently. “I’ll get Jester-“

“No!” Nott hisses, grabbing his hand to stop him. “It’s fine! I’m fine! Just a bit of a cough!” 

Caleb squints uselessly at her in the dim light, looking uncertain, but he sits down beside her when she tugs on his hand. His big hand wraps around hers more securely, and Nott frowns down at it. Caleb’s hands are shaking. 

“Are you all right?” Nott whispers. Everyone else is still asleep, breathing deep and even, punctuated by snores. Caleb’s breath stutters to a stop for a moment, and he shakes his head. 

“I was never even close to danger. I hid myself as far away as I could go.”

“Good!” Nott says, with a surge of relief. She’d done a terrible job keeping an eye on him in the fight. 

“No, it was not good,” he objects. “I was useless, because I was afraid to get close. I did not even see you when you went after them. I didn’t know-“ he breaks off, breathing gone strangely ragged. 

“That’s exactly what you should do! Every time you get close, you almost die! I don’t want to keep watching you die, Caleb!” Nott knows her voice is going shrill, but she can’t help it. She had been too far away to help, this time, if he’d been in danger. She would have to do better. 

Caleb shakes his head, grasping her other hand with his free one. He is still shaking. “I did not know that you were hurt,” he says, voice low and terrible. “By the time I came, you were up! I thought, she is fine! Nott is always fine! And they didn’t tell me until later that you had almost died.”

“Oh, well,” Nott begins lamely, and doesn’t know how to go on. She shrugs. “Jester is really good at healing people, isn’t she?”

“That is not the point.” Caleb looks terrible. “The point is, I did not do my share, and I did not do anything to protect you. I am so sorry, Nott.”

“It’s not your job to look after me,” Nott protests. “It was my fault for rushing ahead! I’m sorry, Caleb! I should have stayed with the group. I know you’ve said it’s better with more, and you’re right, you are! I just wasn’t thinking!”

“Don’t be sorry!” Caleb’s voice sounds rough, like he’d been breathing ashes, too. “You were so brave in that fight. If I could be brave like you, perhaps I would do better at trying to help you.”

“You already do.” Her arms itch, almost, and Nott finds herself having to squash the impulse to fling them around Caleb. “I’d be a goner for sure if not for you. And you were right! These people are like a healing potion for us!” 

“Nott,” Caleb says, still with that awful sound in his voice. “I want you to understand this, hmm? If I had known what you were facing, I would have been there beside you. I would have come with you.”

“Caleb, no! You could die!” She’s horrified enough by that idea that she grabs his arm, forgetting the sharpness of her claws. 

“You almost did die, Kleine,” Caleb whispers. “I didn’t know. When Jester told me-“ he gives a shudder, all over. “You must not do that to me again, hey?” He sounds like he’s trying to make a joke, but his voice is like claws on stone. 

“Caleb?” Nott’s throat is suddenly rough, and she swallows hard. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

She blinks, and somehow she’s in his arms, crushed against Caleb in an almost painful embrace. She wraps her arms around his neck. Goblins don’t do hugs - but goblins don’t do a lot of things that Nott does, now. 

They stay like that a long time; long enough for both of them to calm their breathing and pretend they haven’t been crying. Eventually his arms loosen, and Nott slips down to cuddle against Caleb’s side, one warm arm still wrapped around her shoulders. 

“Do you know?” Caleb asks gently, squeezing her shoulder a little. “You are my very favorite person. And you are the bravest person I have ever known.”

The tightness in her throat makes it hard to breathe for a moment, and Nott presses her face into his side to hide the wild grin that she can’t stop. “I’m going to do even better,” she assures him, when she can speak again. “Just wait and see! I’m going to learn so much more magic, and steal you so many healing potions!”

Caleb shakes his head and makes a strange, fond humming sound. “None of that matters, my wonderful girl,” he says, and he drops a kiss on the top of her head. “You can steal whatever you like and go on whatever lunatic adventures you want, and I will be there with you all the way. Just so long as you are safe.”

*****

Goblins, Nott is learning, don’t know much about a lot of things. They’re bad at table manners and making people trust them and taking baths. She’s never going to be welcome in polite society, and why Caleb chooses to associate with her is still a bit of a mystery. Those things aren’t quite as important as they used to be, though. 

She falls asleep slumped against Caleb’s side, and ignores the bit of her mind that tells her to back up and give him space, that he won’t want to wake up to an ugly little goblin child sprawled all over him. Nott goes to sleep, and doesn’t worry about whether he’ll still be there in the morning. Caleb will be there. 

And if precedent is anything to go by, she can look forward to stealing his bacon.

**Author's Note:**

> Yup. I’m officially campaigning for Nott for every elected office for the rest of eternity. 
> 
> I really wanted to see some kind of fallout from Nott’s near-death, and felt a little robbed by the lack thereof. Hope you guys enjoyed!


End file.
